I'll look after You
by CupcakeSprinkles14
Summary: AU: Katniss is arrested after protesting against deforestation and is made to work community service in a Hospital. All she wants is to finish her probation and get back to preventing the destruction of the forests of Panem, but what happens when she meets Leukemia paitent Peeta Mellark? Sweet and charming, Peeta introduces Katniss to a whole new world: the world of Panem Hospital.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: New story idea folks! I'm sorry I just had to post this one before someone else came up with the idea! Hope you like it! :D**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games**_

Chapter One

"I think I'm missing an orange jumpsuit."

Dr. Haymitch laughed, his voice rough as sandpaper and hinting at a history of alcohol. "That only happens in the movies sweetheart," he said. "Community Service isn't the cool, fun pass time that it's cracked up to be. I have had many a hipster arriving on the door step of this hospital after commiting an offence, thinking that this was the easier way than going to jail. If you're one of them then I suggest you chose picking garbage off the M5."

Katniss scoffed, following him up the seemingly endless corridor. "No," she contradicted. "I didn't even do anything wrong." She could see the blurry forms of their reflections on the polished floor, keeping ahead of them as they moved at a rapid pace. Dr. Haymitch laughed again and her eyebrows bowed into a scowl.

"Says here you climbed up a tree and stayed up there for thirty eight hours to protest the cutting down of the forest," Haymitch answered, lifting a sheet off his clipboard and reading from her probation leaflet. "I don't know what you classify as 'wrong' but it's definitely wrong according to the law."

Damn the law, Katniss felt like saying back. As they spoke, the D12 forest was being cut down to make way for a theme park. That was the third forest in Panem to be completely demolished just to clear the area for frivilous amusements. All she had done was climb the old oak and refuse to come down for the construction workers. No matter what they called her-which ranged from 'tree hugger' to 'nature fucker' by the third day-she hadn't come down.

She would have stayed up longer too if it hadn't of been for the tracker jacker nest they shoved into the bark of the tree. There was a small hole right by her head and if she hadn't got down off the tree she would have gotten stung. Katniss had been determined though and climbed higher instead of climbing lower, and nearly reached the very top of the tree. As she emerged from the top layer of leaves, she had just caught the wonderous view of all of Panem before her sneaker skidded on the bark and she fell.

One of the construction workers broke her fall-ironically, the particularly rude asshole who had the gall to call her 'nature fucker'. At the time, Katniss hadn't realized that she had been breaking the law by refusing to come down, but she certainly cottoned on when the police stepped forward and snapped the handcuffs onto her wrists.

"I'm curious," Dr. Haymitch said, coming to a stop at the floor's reception desk. The woman who sat behind it was the classic cover girl model type. All blonde curls and bright pink nail polish. She smiled at Dr. Haymitch, the sticky gloop of her lip gloss making Kattnis scrunch her nose in disgust. "Why did you choose the hospital?"

"Because it sounded much cleaner than striding through the crap down in the 13 sewage pipes," Katniss replied dryly. This was technically true but she wasn't going to divulge the true meaning as to why she chose the hospital for her Community Service to some stranger.

"And I thought it was because you couldn't be parted from your Momma for too long," Dr. Haymitch replied with a smirk. The girl at the reception giggled-being the most sickening sound Katniss had ever heard-and she resisted the urge to flip the bird at the barbie doll.

Katniss' mom worked on the floor above this one, in the physc ward. She had been supportive of Katniss trying to save the forests but was very disappointed in her for getting arrested. It agitated Katniss that her mother was so hypocrital that she'd tell her she can do one thing but then when she already did it, changed her opinion completely. She got too scared as soon as the authorities had gotten involved. Well, despite her mother's disapproval, once her community service was done, Katniss was already planning to head to D5, the next forest planned for obliteration.

"So what do I have to do to make dust of this place?" she asked.

Dr. Haymitch scribbled something onto a slip of paper and handed it to her. "Give this to Nurse Trinket, she'll mentor you. You'll be working with the leukaemia paitents. Try and sympathise sweetheart, a lot of them will never get to leave this building ever again."

Katniss frowned. Why would they dump a delinquet like her into a ward as serious as the leukaemia paitent's ward? Was Dr. Haymtich mad? She could barely sympathise with her baby sister when her cat died, how was she going to be able to pretend like she cared about a bunch of people she didn't even know who were very likely going to be vying for attention that she really wasn't willing to give?

Gauging her reaction, Dr. Haymitch grinned. "You'll do just fine, I'm sure," he said, patting her arm. He turned and left then, his white coat billowing slightly behind him. The receptionist giggled again and Katniss' head snapped towards her irritablely.

"So you're the tree hugger," she twittered, licking her glossed lips.

"Yeah," Katniss answered shortly. "And?"

She shrugged. "Nothing," she said. She smiled and held out her hand. "I'm Delly."

"Tree hugger," Katniss replied, not shaking the outheld hand. "Other wise known as nature fucker."

Delly's nose twitched and, realizing that Katniss wasn't going to shake her hand, retracted it slowly. "I know your name, Dr. Abernathy told me."

Abernathy? Was that Dr. Haymitch? "Do you know where the Leukaemia ward is?" Katniss asked, not even bothering to hide the hostility in her voice. She didn't like this Delly girl, she was too chirpy for her liking.

"Yeah," Delly replied, holding her hand out again. "Give me your slip, I need to stamp it."

Katniss sighed and handed the slip over. Delly smiled again, her pearly white teeth smeared with some of her glittery pink lip gloss. Urgh, was that flavoured? It had to be. How else could someone be capable of letting that slime sit on their lips for so long if it tasted clinical?

"The Leukaemia bunch are actually a really sweet bunch," the barbie doll rambled. "I'm sure you'll enjoy working with them for the next-" she squinted at the slip- "twenty four months? You got twenty four months for climbing a tree?"

"It was a tall tree," Katniss replied.

"I see," Delly said. She stamped the slip without another word and handed it back. "The ward is just a couple of rooms that way. You won't miss Nurse Trinket . . . no one could miss Effie."

Katniss didn't even spare the girl another glance before she took the slip and headed off in the direction in which she pointed. The Hospital had an ongoing feeling of death and decay. She was aware the entire time that people lost their lives in this building, that people lost limbs, families lost members, friends lost loved ones, brothers lost brothers, cousins lost cousins . . . sisters lost sisters . . .

_No._ Katniss shook her head and brushed her hair from her face. She wasn't going to think about that. She was here to complete her Community Service and that was it. She didn't even dain the golden memorial plague a glance as she passed it, refusing to think about that horrific night. That wasn't why she was here.

She stopped at the room stamped onto her slip and hesitated. Could she just walk into the ward or did she have to find this Nurse Trinket first? Reluctantly, she turned the corner and immediately felt a change in atmosphere. It wasn't what she expected. She had expected it to feel like the rest of the hospital: dark, gloomy and reeking of death.

But no, instead the Leukaemia ward had the atmosphere of a summer camp. Most of them were minors-maybe there was a seperate ward for the adults?-and all of them were either sitting on their beds chatting to each other, reading books or watching the old flat screen t.v that was currently showing a week old episode of some old t.v show that Katniss didn't recognize.

Despite the lack of bereavement, Katniss could still recognize the characteristics of these kid's illnesses. Whether it was the over use of the wearing of the bandana or the gaut cheeks of lack of nutrition, all of them showed signs of the intake of chemotherapy. Katniss felt wrong standing there immediately judging them without even thinking about it, and willed Nurse Trinket to show up.

And show up she did.

Pink hair. Pink hair. What sort of nurse has pink _hair_?

"Excuse me dear," the woman said, "can I help you?"

Katniss blinked, surprised by the amount of make-up caked on the woman's face. And she thought Delly's slimy lips were bad. This woman was off the chart and that was her face alone! "Um, yeah," she said, snapping out of her trance. "I'm Katniss . . . Dr. Abernathy sent me here . . . uh, I'm on Community Service?"

"Oh, you're Rose's daughter aren't you?" Nurse Trinket said, taking the slip from Katniss' hands and quickly skimming it with her eyes. "I'm sorry I should have met you at Delly's desk but Clove took sick and I had to help the poor lamb clean herself up."

"Uh . . ." Would she have to help people clean sick off themselves? Katniss fought back a disugsted frown. She had hoped to god that she didn't have to even look at vomit let alone have to clean if off some kid's face.

"Don't worry, you won't be made to do any of the hard stuff like that until you're used to us and the way we work," Nurse Trinket assured her. "Now, let me introduce you to everyone." She took Katniss by the crook of her elbow and guided her to the first bed.

A girl sat ontop, her black hair creating a curtain around her face as she sat playing on her gameboy. Her thumbs and fingers jabbed vigorously into the buttons and she didn't even look up as Nurse Trinket introduced her as Clove. She looked good for someone who had just taken sick, Katniss thought.

On the next bed, a guy sat with his back pressed against the back wall, a green and blue bandana wrapped around his head. His nose was buried in a book and Katniss couldn't even make out his face. Trinket informed her that this was Cato and told her not to expect him to speak to her too much because he didn't like outsiders.

"This is Glimmer," Trinket continued as they arrived at the domain of a girl who also wore a bandana of her own. Hers was bright pink and studded with diamonds. Glimmer smiled and waved her thin hand at Katniss, who waved back slightly awkwardly. "And Marvel." In the next bed a boy seemed absorbed in the t.v and when he didn't respond to his name being said, Trinket decided it was best not to push it.

Katniss was then guided across the small ward to other side to where a little girl was sleeping. "This is Rue," Trinket explained quietly. "She relapsed last week. All she really does is sleep, poor little lamb." The next bed was empty and Trinket sighed. "Poor Thresh," she sighed. She looked at Katniss and smiled sadly. "You get used to death around here."

"I'd say so," Katniss replied. Wasn't that, like, part of the job description? 'Must be okay with death'?

The next bed contained a red headed girl with a fox-like face. She glanced at Katniss apprehensively before returning to her cross word without a word. "That's Finch," Nurse Trinket explained. "She doesn't talk much, not even to us. Only when she's in pain or needs something."

Katniss was okay with that. She wasn't fond of talking either.

She got momentarily distracted as Clove whooped in delight and got out of her bed to show Cato her gameboy. The bandana clad boy looked at her game screen and laughed, pulling her onto his bed beside him and taking the console from her, immediately getting into the game while Clove watched attentively over his shoulder.

Nurse Trinket sighed and snapped Katniss' attention away from the gamers. "Peeta, how many times have I told you to stop picking at the cathater!"

"I'm sorry Effie but there's something wrong with the damn thing," a boy beside Finch responded. Katniss turned back around to find Nurse Trinket lightly slapping a boy's hand away from the tube stuck into his right hand. He had golden blond hair that didn't look as limp as lifeless as the other kid's in the ward.

"What's wrong with it then?" Trinket demanded to know as she grabbed his wrist and held it above his head to stop him from picking at the tube.

"I don't know, it just hurts," the boy replied, not even struggling to get his arm out of the woman's hold.

Nurse Trinket sighed and dropped his wrist. "Who put it in?" she asked.

"Nurse Paylor."

"I'll go talk to her then. Stay here Katniss, I'll be back in a minute."

Katniss opened her mouth to protest but Nurse Trinket had already turned on her heel and started walking away. She immediately felt the urge to run away, to hide from the dying kids because she didn't know what to say or do with them.

"Good job on getting rid of Effie Peet!" Clove called from across the room.

"Well, he had to do something. She was traumatising the nature fucker," Marvel said, not breaking his gaze from the t.v.

Glimmer gasped. "Watch your mouth Marvel! There's a child in here!"

"Pff, she's asleep," Marvel replied.

"As much as I'd like to take credit for getting rid of our wonderful nurse, my cathater really is digging into my hand," the blond boy explained. Katniss looked over her shoulder at him. Her heart skipped a beat as he locked eyes with hers. They were bright blue, impossibly blue. It was so strange, she had never seen eyes like that before, not even from the merchants.

"Did you squirm?" Clove asked.

The boy broke eye contact with Katniss and she felt immediately empty inside. He looked at Clove and squinted. "No?" he said slowly.

"He squirmed," Cato stated.

"Did not!"

Katniss folded her arms and scuffed the floor awkwardly. She felt like she was on the outside looking in, the oddity. The person who would get to walk out of the building at nine o'clock while everyone else were trapped there. They all got along with each other very well for a bunch of teens with cancer. Maybe that was it, the connection they all have? No, that couldn't be it.

"Hey, what's your name?"

Katniss looked back up at the blond boy in surprise. He was lying ontop of a slope of pillows, suddenly looking very debilitated. Her eyes skittered to the tube in his hand, which was obviously causing him pain as he claimed. "I'm sorry?" she asked.

"I asked what your name was. I assume you aren't called nature . . . ah . . . fucker," the boy explained. His blue eyes widened and he quickly said, "Unless that is your real name, in that case it's a beautiful name, a lovely name. It's not though . . . right?"

Katniss found a smile creeping onto her face. "No, I'm Katniss."

The boy smiled weakly, his eyes falling shut for a moment. Katniss wondered if he'd fallen asleep before quickly being assured when he said, "I'm Peeta."

She wasn't sure how to respond so she came out with the first thing that came into her head. "Hello Peeta."

"Hello Katniss, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Nurse Trinket returned soon after and ushered Katniss out of the way as she fixed the tube in Peeta's hand. Even as she stood outside of the ward for a couple of minutes to get her breath back after feeling slightly overwhelmed from everything she just took in, she couldn't help thinking about the blue of Peeta's eyes. No blue she had ever seen before was as brilliant and bright as his.

_That's stupid, _she thought. Blue was blue like red was red and green was green. She wasn't going to get attatched to these people. It was two years, then D5. Nothing was going to distract her from saving the forests of Panem.

Nothing.

_**A/N: Please R&R and let me know what you think! :D**_

_**Follow me on tumblr: : / / hgtmigirlxx . tumblr (with no spaces)**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Hey guys, thank you all for your wonderful reviews! Here's chapter two for you all! ^_^**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games.**_

Chapter Two

"Hold Glimmer's bucket for me dear," Nurse Trinket said, handing Katniss the bin in which Glimmer had just hurled in. She pulled a face, holding the bucket out from her body. While the nurse fixed up the girl's duvet, Katniss resisted the urge to pinch her nose to ward off the smell emnating from the bucket.

"Can the tree hugger not handle a bucket of vomit?" Clove asked from her bed.

Katniss scowled. "Compared to the normal shit I have to scrape through, this is nothing," she said indignantly. Nurse Trinket took the bucket back and went off to clean it out and sterile it.

Clove laughed. "Bring it back quick Effie, Marvel's looking a little green!" Alarmed, Katniss whipped around to look at Marvel, only to find him looking fine and watching the old telly programme that seemed to play on repeat in the ward 24/7. Clove laughed harder at her reaction. "Handled worse? Sure, whatever."

Deciding to ignore the girl's irritating teasing, Katniss gestured to the t.v. "What is this anyway?" she asked Marvel.

"_Cheers_," he answered.

"It can't be recent, the screen's all grainy," she replied.

"Yeah, it's ancient," Glimmer said. She was sitting forward in her bed, bracing herself against the mattress. She still looked serverely ill after throwing up but there was no trace of it in her voice. "But he loves it."

"It's classic stuff!" Marvel protested.

Cato snorted, not even looking up from his book. "Yeah, classic bullshit."

"Says the bloke reading _Harry Potter_," Marvel threw back.

Nurse Trinket popped her head around the door. "Stop fighting children. We don't want to make a bad impression to Katniss," she scolded before disappearing again. Clove rolled her eyes and flipped off the spot where Nurse Trinket once stood.

"_'Stop fighting children,'_" she mimicked. Glimmer and Marvel snickered in amusement. Cato rolled his eyes and continued reading. Katniss squinted at the front cover and raised her eyebrows.

"_Deathly Hallows_," she said. "Last book, right?"

Quirking an eyebrow, Cato peered over his book. "Yeah," he said simply.

"I've read that," Katniss replied, trying to sound friendly (something she was never very good at).

"Ay, ay, keep quiet or he'll wring your neck in," Clove warned. "He doesn't like spoilers."

Katniss looked around the ward curiously, only just noticing that everyone had their own little thing to do. Clove had her video game, Cato had his books, Marvel had the t.v and Glimmer was sewing diamonds onto her pyjamas. Across the ward, Rue was still sleeping and Finch was doing a crossword. Beside Finch the bed was . . . empty.

Before she could really stop and think about it, Katniss found herself asking, "Where's the blond kid?"

Clove raised her eyebrows. "You mean Peeta, right?"

"Um, yeah," Katniss said hesitantly. "Him."

Clove looked down, her face grave. "Well, you know. Cancer ward . . . no-one's life is set in stone, right?" she said. Katniss' eyes widened in horror. Was she saying that Peeta was . . . dead? How could that possibly be right? She only just saw him yesterday! He couldn't be dead already, not being the only person who'd shown the tiniest bits of kindness towards her?

"What the hell are you talking about Clove?" Glimmer demanded. "He's getting his leg checked over!"

Clove burst out laughing and Katniss felt her veins flaming with rage. "You actually thought he was dead! Did you see her face?! Oh my god, that's hilarious!"

"That's not funny," Katniss said stiffly, feeling nothing but embarrassment. How could she have been so naive!

"You're a sick woman Jettison," Marvel muttered.

"Oh my god!" Clove was still laughing, curling up in her bed and cackling like a witch. Katniss wanted to slap the girl for being so horrible. Who _joked_ about that sort of thing?! "Oh, I'm going to have a lot of fun with you girl, you stick around. It's not everyday someone believes my death jokes!" Katniss was disgusted. So Clove joked around about someone else's death like that on a regular basis?

A cool hand touched her arm and she turned around to find Glimmer smiling at her. "It's okay, she's the only one who finds that funny. He's not dead, I swear."

Building her protective walls back up again after having them knocked down by Clove's sadistic joke, Katniss scowled. "Like I'd have cared. I'm just here for the community service."

Glimmer's face fell, her eyebrows furrowing together into a small frown. "Judging by the look on your face, I'd have said otherwise."

Katniss opened her mouth to reply when Clove butt in. "She was shell shocked! All the colour had gone from her face! She looked like a damn ghost!"

"Oh do shut up Clove," Marvel said. "Just because you're a Cancer paitent, doesn't mean you can take everything out on those who don't have it. I mean, jesus, what happens if Peeta does die someday? He's relapsed enough! You won't be laughing then!"

Glimmer climbed out of her bed and rummanged inside her drawer. Katniss watched with a frown as she produced a small block of wood from the middle drawer. She walked around her bed and hobbled over to Clove's, shoving the block of wood under her nose. "Touch it and say that Peeta is not dead," she ordered.

Rolling her eyes, Clove slapped her hand onto the wood. "Peeta is not dead," she monotoned.

"Wait, what's that about?" Katniss asked while Glimmer walked back around to her bed.

"It's what we do. If anyone jokes, talks or hints at death for any of us, we touch the wood and say that they're not going to die and/are not dead," Marvel explained. "Clove just said that Peeta was dead, therefore she must touch the block and say that he is not. It's not that we believe in supersition, but it's not worth the risk."

Katniss bit her lip and shifted her weight. "Not worth what risk?"

A silence fell across the ward, the only sound to be heard being the occasional turning of the pages of Cato's book and the scribbling of Finch's pen scratching on her crossword. Katniss could practically feel herself suffocating in the awkward air that hung around the paitents. Had she unintentionally struck a nerve?

"The last thing we said to Thresh was 'good luck with the colonoscopy'," Marvel said quietly.

Alarmed, Katniss frowned. "What? Why?" she asked.

"It was a joke we had amongst each other," Clove explained with a careless shrug. "We were just messing around. Thresh knew we were messing around."

"He even laughed," Glimmer added.

"But he never came back."

Katniss looked at her feet, feeling almost ashamed. For what though, she wasn't sure. "Oh," she frowned. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Marvel said. "I mean, it was two months ago . . ."

"The only reason I made a joke was because I know for sure Peeta isn't going to die," Clove explained. "He's just getting a check up on his leg."

Katniss brushed her hair behind her ears and looked back up at Clove. "What's wrong with his leg?" she asked.

Clove shrugged. "First bout of cancer was in his bone marrow," she answered. "He had to get a leg amputated. The amputation worked, he made dust of this place for a good year. Must have been nice, to be free for a while . . ."

"And all the more harder to be forced back," Marvel muttered. Clove glared at him but he shrugged. "What? It's true. Must be hard being forced back to this hell hole. Then again, we're all used to it. Relapse is as common as rocks around here."

Katniss couldn't believe what she was hearing. How could they talk so easily about this? As if relapsing and cancer and amputations were part of everyday life and were just something to be got on with. But then . . . to them, maybe it was. She looked at the door and willed Nurse Trinket to return, to save her from the leukaemia paitents who were making everything so much harder and so much more uncomfortable.

Not expecting the door to open as soon as she made the wish for Nurse Trinket to return, Katniss jumped as someone came through. She was relieved-thinking it was Nurse Trinket-only to tense back up again as someone else came through.

Peeta bumped the door open with his hip, hobbling into the ward with a cane to aid him as he walked. Katniss felt a twitch of something she could only describe as bashfulness and a slight tint of relief to see him again. Same hair, same eyes, same pyjamas, same nightgown. He was all in one piece and he wasn't dead at all.

"Peeta! You're back, finally!" Glimmer said, her voice flooded with relief. It was as if the girl had believed that he had actually died while they had been talking.

"Clove scared the crap out of tree hugger by saying you'd bit the dust," Marvel said.

Peeta looked at Katniss, blinking in surprise. Katniss looked away, unable to look him straight in those bright blue eyes, heat flooding to her cheeks in embarrassment. "She didn't scare me," she said. "I knew you were fine." She expected him to laugh, or at least be angry at the fact that someone was making jokes about his death.

"Well, that's good, because I am fine," Peeta simply said. Katniss looked back up at him in surprise, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline. "I mean, a bit sore but nothing can be done about that. No rest for the wicked, right?"

Clove snorted. "No rest for the wicked," she parroted. "Well gee Peet, you must be a damn saint the amount of time you sleep."

Peeta grinned and winked at her, wincing and quickly sitting down on his bed. Katniss found it difficult not to stare at his legs, wondering which one was the one that had to be amputated. It was horrible to stare and she knew it, but there was something that kept dragging her eyes towards it whenever she tried to look away.

To keep her mind distracted, she busied herself with grabbing a brush that was propped up against the wall and brushing up the floor. Everyone went back to their small hobbies; Clove reassuming her video game, Cato continuing to read-not that he had contributed to the previous conversation that much anyway-Marvel once again getting absorbed into the t.v show and Glimmer sewing more diamonds.

As she was brushing, she paused at Rue's bed. She looked so young . . . was her cancer terminal or did she still have a shot at curing this thing? Katniss felt a wrench in her gut and sighed, shaking her head and continuing to brush up.

Her mind unoccupied once more, Katniss internally swore as her eyes skittered back towards Peeta. Damn it, the kid was like a damn lighthouse. Everytime she turned her back, it felt like he was watching her. Which was ridiculous because when she turned back, he was busy drawing in his sketchpad, not looking at her at all. She had to stop looking at him or he'd catch her at any minute and then wonder for the next two years why the tree hugger kept staring at him.

"Clove told you about my leg didn't she?"

"What?" Katniss exclaimed, alarmed at being snapped out of her thoughts. Peeta was looking at her-when at that happened?-with his sketchpad sitting idly in his lap. He had an eyebrow quirked at her and had the faintest of smiles on his lips. Hold on, why was she even looking at his lips? Katniss shook her head.

"You can't stop glancing at me ever since I got back from the check-up. Either I have become so stunningly attractive since the last time you saw me that you can't stop looking at me-" Clove snorted from the other side of the room-"or the snorter over there has told you about my leg."

Katniss winced, ashamed at being caught. "Uh . . ."

"It's okay, you know. I don't mind," Peeta said.

"Which one is it?" Katniss blurted out before she could stop herself.

Peeta grinned. "Left," he answered.

"Is-is-is it like a . . . fake . . . one?" Katniss asked carefully.

He nodded. "Yes. Prosthetic. Well, I say prosthetic, it's more metal than prosthetic."

Katniss tried not to pull a face. "So you can take it off and stuff?" she asked.

"Oh yeah," Clove intercepted. "Grossiest thing you'll ever witness."

Glimmer gasped dramatically. "You hush up Clove!" she said. "That's horrible! How would you like it if you had an artifical limb and he kept mocking you about it?"

Peeta chuckled. "It's okay Glim," he said. "It grosses me out too."

"Well, if it grosses you out then there's no hope for tree hugger," Clove said. Katniss glanced at Clove, trying her hardest not to scowl. "Wait till' curfew nature fucker, you'll see it all then. Effie always tries to help but Peeta never lets her because he has to learn to'do it himself'. The stump is awesome."

This time, Katniss did pull a face. "Stump?" she asked slowly.

"It's okay, you don't have to sit and stare like everyone else," Peeta said. "Seriously guys, the way you all crowd around I think Effie is starting to think I'm dealing drugs or something."

"Or even worse, dealing rated R movies," Marvel muttered. Everyone laughed and Katniss felt like she was missing out on something. Well, it was only her second day, she probably was missing out on something.

Deciding to swiftly change the subject, Katniss stepped closer to Peeta's bed and peered at his sketchbook. "What'cha drawing?" she asked.

"Um, nothing," Peeta replied, quickly shutting his pad. Katniss stepped back, startled. "Uh, sorry, it's just . . . it was nothing." He looked flustered and Katniss internally cursed. She could never find the right things to say, she'd always manage to strike a damn nerve. This was why Gale was her only friend!

"Ha! I get it!" Clove suddenly said. "Somebody's got a crush on tree hugger!"

Peeta scowled at Clove and quickly stuck his sketchpad under his pillow. "Don't you have a level to clear?" he asked dryly.

"Just did it," Clove said, waving her game console in her hand. "I'm more invested in the star-crossed lovers of the cancer ward!"

"What?!" Katniss exclaimed.

"Don't you have anything better to do than make other people's lives miserable?" Glimmer asked.

Clove shrugged. "It's my job."

"I'm going to sleep," Peeta muttered, turning over on his side and throwing his quilt over his head. Katniss stared at his resting form with a frown, wondering what just happened. He was sleeping within minutes, snoring gently in a way that made Katniss smile. She fought it back though, keeping the indifferent mask on her face.

"No rest for the wicked?" Clove scoffed. "Pure damn saint."

Katniss could already tell that this was going to be two very long years.

_**A/N: Please R&R with your thoughts? Thanks! ^_^ **_


End file.
